With help from the arts education non-profit ASSITEJ, we will be distributing 250 activity books to young people across Kwa-ZuluNatal. We’ve made an 8 page book with colouring pages and activities and ASSITEJ has kindly offered to distribute them as part of a broader programme of getting education materials out. Stay tuned as we hope to see them out to kids by the end of October.
Very excited to be launching this project. We’ve been working on these SuperScientists for a number of months and are launching them this week and next. Part of a project to advocate for gender equity in science, the project lead by Maphe Mthembu brings together scientists that are part of the SANTHE network of scientists across Africa and is funded by the African Academy of Sciences. What was going to be an in person conference has become a social media campaign. Join us at GenderEquitySci on Twitter and Facebook to participate. Science that excludes women or any group, is just not good science. It’s easy to wrap your head around, how to fix it is tough, but we hope that SuperScientists is doing its part.
Putting the finishing touches on a project that we’ve spent many months on. As SuperScientists, we are helping rewrite the story on what it means to be a scientist - they’re cool, they can do amazing things - and who can be one. This group of scientists at SANTHE Africa are rewriting the narrative on gender equity in science. When one gender is less able to contribute to scientific research, we all lose out. Over the coming days from May 25th, we will be introducing a host of new SuperScientists and they will be sharing their ideas on how we can have "#GenderEquityInScience. Join the conversation on Twitter @GenderEquitySci
What does it take to succeed at science? So many things but we asked our scientists to rank creativty, curiosity, communication and hard work. We previously had info about the average salary in the field, and the learners we work with were VERY motivated by that, but there were also people that didn’t like this info. We listened and have changed them.
We really want to be able to get cards out to all who have expressed interest as soon as the lock down is done.
Scientists around the world are responding to the pandemic. Prof Bulie Magula is one of the experts the National Department of Health has called on to talk about COVID-19. Watch her and other SA experts at https://sacoronavirus.co.za/category/listen-to-the-experts/
Bulie will be leading KZN’s component of the WHO Solidarity Trial, a worldwide set of clinical trials to evaluate COVID-19 treatments. She’s also busy with preparting the provincial health system for coronavirus patients. Lots of hard work being done. We will science our way out of this, one way or another.
Our newest SuperScientists from KEMRI | Wellcome Trust in Kenya. Prof Faith Osier a malaria vaccinlogist, Dr Kui Muraya a gender in health social scientist, Prof George Warimwe a vaccinologist (he’s worked on viruses related to COVID-19), and Peter Macharia a geospatial modeler. Read all about their work and download their colour-in pages at Activities.
Science and scientists have, arguably, never been more important than now. Thanks for your interest in them and what they do!
We’re excited to launch a new way to interact with the fantastic scientists we are sharing. We have 10 colouring in pages at Activities . Download Prof EcoHealth and Coral Commodore, colour them in, add some background and make them yours. Colour them in or draw your own SuperScientist and share your creativity with us. You never know what might happen!
Congratulations to Maphe Mthembu (below and the SuperScientist SideScatter), for receiving her first named grant! We are working with her and other members of the Africa Health Research Initiative and and the SANTHE network to develop a group of SuperScientists, who will come together to discuss approaches to reducing gender inequity in science and leave with materials and a new approach to the narratives that define science and scientists. Photo credit: AHRI
